Anonymous, the mercurial “hactivist” collective behind a series of pro-WikiLeaks cyber protests, has declared war on the British Government following the arrest of five people in the UK.

Blah blah blah...

Quote

The threat has been judged serious enough for GovCertUK, the information security agency, to issue an advisory urging government websites to take precautions against DDoS attacks. “In light of this threat we would advise you to be vigilant against any new signs of DDoS activity you may encounter, and to notify us if such activity occurs,” the advisory warns.

In recent months the Government’s cyber security has been criticised in some quarters for being ill-prepared to deal with both hacking and mass cyber protests like DDoS.

In November a lone hacker from Romania successfully broke into the Royal Navy’s recruitment website and published details of current and former defence staff, including a former Royal Navy head.

Last year the Coalition also declined requests to upgrade government computers from using Internet Explorer 6, a decade old internet browser that has been abandoned by the French and German governments because of concerns over patches in its security.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA~!

Sorry... But if the UK government is that stupid, they deserve to get hacked~!

i've read reports before about how clueless the UK government is about the net - demanding that they keep IE6 just explains everything. maybe one day they'll consider the net important enough to read up about it. or, possibly, even use it.

and they can't 'upgrade' because some of the apps they've developed are incompatible with other browsers(including other versions of IE...)

You have my deepest sympathies.

I've done a lot of work with custom browsers and whatnot. I really think it's a better direction than staying with an outdated browser. If you need something specific as an application, you really shouldn't be going browser-specific because browsers just get out-dated. If you can spin it all off into a custom browser, then you're set -- a dedicated purpose browser that doesn't interfere with your main browser. Sigh... Just my $0.02 on the subject.

I've done a lot of work with custom browsers and whatnot. I really think it's a better direction than staying with an outdated browser. If you need something specific as an application, you really shouldn't be going browser-specific because browsers just get out-dated. If you can spin it all off into a custom browser, then you're set -- a dedicated purpose browser that doesn't interfere with your main browser. Sigh... Just my $0.02 on the subject.

yeah, but why go to the trouble of sourcing or developing a dedicated browser when there are already plenty of choices available

I always thought browsers were supposed to be (more or less) content agnostic, so the idea of a a developer tying their app to a single version of a single browser seems somewhat, errrm, 'short sighted'...(then again, maybe not...)

I've done a lot of work with custom browsers and whatnot. I really think it's a better direction than staying with an outdated browser. If you need something specific as an application, you really shouldn't be going browser-specific because browsers just get out-dated. If you can spin it all off into a custom browser, then you're set -- a dedicated purpose browser that doesn't interfere with your main browser. Sigh... Just my $0.02 on the subject.

yeah, but why go to the trouble of sourcing or developing a dedicated browser when there are already plenty of choices available

I always thought browsers were supposed to be (more or less) content agnostic, so the idea of a a developer tying their app to a single version of a single browser seems somewhat, errrm, 'short sighted'...(then again, maybe not...)

Building a custom browser is simple and easy. And it poses no extra burden on the operating system or browser in terms of upgrade costs.

I don't know what you're using there, or what you're doing with the browser, so it's hard to intelligently comment on any specific issues.

The thing with a custom browser is that you have complete control over the entire thing. And you're isolated from everything else, so no upgrade worries.

The practical upshot is that instead of having a "browser" to run an application in, you have an application that runs a browser in it. THAT is the key. If it's an important function that your company/organization depends on, then a browser plugin may not be the right way to go simply because then you potentially screw yourself for browser upgrades, as you're seeing right now. With the dedicated application route, you don't have those problems.